railroad lines that are abandoned or exempt website?

[ironhorseman]

http://abandonedrailroads.homestead.com/

Then scroll down and find Kansas.

The following is kind of long and put together rather hastily, but it describes some of my own experiences I’ve had tracking down some old, abandoned, and disappearing railroads around the Wichita area and east thereof. Other information comes from history classes at Wichita State and the libraries and museums of the area, great assets for exploring, understanding, and preserving some of the almost forgotten local history; and many thanks to the residents of these communities who are willing to take the time to share information, their stories and memories with a complete stranger.

The Frisco: Beaumont, Atlanta, and Augusta

Chasing down ghost railroads may not be as glamorous or thrilling as chasing down a hot shot double stack express freight or catching a glimpse of the newest locomotive. It takes more imagination and more patience to look for something that isn't there anymore. It's like an Indiana Jones expedition where you get the feeling you might uncover some big mystery. You know from the old maps that a railroad once ran through this part of the countryside but you can't see it anymore. If you like puzzles and looking for clues you might try it someday. Go out and play amateur archeologist for a day.

I don't have any pictures on my website, and there's not time to post them before I go back to work Monday, but I've traced the abandoned lines from Augusta to Beaumont to Atlanta to Winfield and in Wichita, too.

I find it kind of ironic how the Frisco once went everywhere and is now nowhere to be found. Its traces are slowly disappearing. There's a good book called Ghost Railroads of Kansas by Robert Collins. I think most Kansas libraries have a copy by now. Craig Miner has also written a book about the Frisco in Kansas and is one of the leading authorities on Kansas, and particularly, Wichita history.

Atlanta, Kansas: the lone caboose

The Frisco entered the state in the south east and made its way to Wichita by 1880. They used to have a major shop and roundhouse at Beaumont, but all that's left is the famous wooden water tower. There the line split and made it's way to Atlanta and then Winfield. At Atlanta there's an old Santa Fe caboose and a very, very small museum, "open most Saturdays." There’s not a single rail, depot, or trace of any railroad except for this caboose and an impression in the ground where the tracks once were, but the caboose is there like a boat without a lake; it seems out of place. Actually, I had no idea there would be a caboose is this little town and finding where tracks used to go can be a challenge if you don't know what to look for. A major clue, at least in the midwest, is to look for the grain elevators. Almost everytime where ever a grain elevator is you will find a railroad or the remnents of one. And on the prairies the grain elevators, being the tallests structures around, stand out like beacons. Sure enough, like any Kansas town, there was a grain elevator, and next to the elevator a roadbed, and not far away was a caboose.

Winfield, Kansas: The Frisco and the Santa Fe crossing

In Winfield there was once a famous 3-way 3 railroad intersection at the north end of Main St. If you're ever in Winfield and look closely you can still see the cut and impression where the Frisco once ran. The only tracks that cross Main St today are former Santa Fe rails now operated by WATCO. And a couple blocks the west of Main St. are grain elevators.

The freight depot is now a Gambino's Pizza restaurant, an excellent place to eat and watch old short line equipment. They still operate at least 4 hi-nose SD40s, all black. It's also been fun trying to guess what railroads their GP38s used to belong to. The paints all faded but I think 1 is an ex-KCS and another is an ex-CN. The BNSF main line runs north and south through town. It's a major artery for Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico traffic. The Triple Crown and UP coal make daily run through here. On the west side of town at the fair grounds just at the Walnut River the old Frisco bridge remnants can still be located.

Augusta, Kansas: The busy line meets the abandoned

On the line from Beaumont west the old concrete Frisco bridge at US 400 is still there, sans rails. The ballast is still intact from Beaumont to Wichita. The Frisco came to Augusta in 1880 from the east heading west to Wichita. The Santa Fe came through in 1881 in a general north/south manner. Just within the last year the last of the rails were taken up between Augusta and Andover. The rails between Andover and Wichita had been tore out a couple years ago. Before all this was done I took a close look at these tracks. The date on these rails read 1916. They were also stamped USS TENNESSEE if I remember correctly.

The diamond at Augusta was particularly notorious for bad accidents as US 54 also intersected this spot. That is why the overpass was built in the 1970s. It's been quite a challenge to figure out exactly where the old highway came into town and where it may have crossed both railroads. I've seen the spot before the old Frisco tracks were tore out and it was still took a lot of imagination to figure it out.

Both depots still stand at Augusta. The old Frisco depot had housed a pawn shop for a few years but is vacant again. The Santa Fe depot is in good condition as it houses the signal and MOW offices. There is plenty of BNSF traffic as the railroad is double tracked and one subdivision meets another at this location. At one time there was a switch tower located right near the diamond. The foundation is still visible when it's not covered by a pile of ballast.

A block to the west stands the grain elevator.

Wichita, Kansas: Frisco end of the line

In Wichita there's been recent talk of turning the old Frisco corridor into a bike trail or a trolley line. From my own personal experiences the former would be more practical as many people walk over this old railroad line anyway with all its rusted rail spikes and rotted crossties and uneven ballasted surface. The ballast on this old abandoned railroad is not like the modern big time railways. Instead of the big rocks it has small rocks, usually not any bigger than your fingernail when or if there is any ballast present at all. There are schools, churches, and houses all along this right of way and I've seen many kids use it as their own pathway as well as many other types of people at all times of day. A bike trail would solve the physical hazards and safety issues for people using this route as well as eliminating the illegality of trespassing on it.

Building a trolley line, however nice an attraction it would be, wouldn't be practical in transporting people in a community so attached to their cars and so insistent on parking at the front door 5 minutes before whatever event their attending starts. It's just the Wichita attitude. This line is in very close proximity to shops, restaurants, businesses, and residences in east Wichita and can be easily connected to similar things downtown, but aside from the cost, there would be some walking involved, and God forbid anybody would have to be forced to walk any distance in this beautiful Kansas weather. They could incorporate the park-and-ride program St. Louis has for its Metrolink, but as reasons stated above it may not work.

Wichita & Southwestern
Getting back on track, there are at least two abandoned railroads really worth mentioning. A big city is going to have abandoned tracks at any given time or place and that’s just the nature of the industry, but the long gone railroad I want to mention is the Wichita and Southwestern. It was the first railroad in Wichita and it only came about because of the cattle trade. In 1872 cattle drivers were taking their herds north the Newton where the Santa Fe picked up the cattle. The citizens of Newton didn’t want the type of business cowboys brought with them, but Wichita did. However Wichita didn’t have a railroad in 1872. In fact, Wichita didn’t have much of anything at that time, except a desire to host cowboys and their business. Wichita became a cowtown after ‘convincing’ some cattle drivers to bring their herd into that town instead of Newton. It wasn’t long until the Wichita & Southwestern was created to transport the cattle from Wichita to Newton to changeover to the Santa Fe for shipment to Kansas City. It wasn’t also long until the AT&SF took over the W&SW. The cattle trade in Wichita lasted from 1872 to 1876 and then it was all over.

Ark Valley Interurban
The other abandoned railroad in Wichita is the Ark Valley Interurban. There aren’t any tracks or obvious visible right of ways that I know of that remain of this trolley line, but at the old Broadview Hotel (now Radisson) on Douglas Ave at the Arkansas River, etched into the mason on side facing Waco St. are the letters ‘AVI’. That part of the building is a bar now, but that’s where the AVI had its headquarters. Behind the hotel was a roundtable and there used to be a bridge across the river leading out from the hotel. All this has long since been gone.

That is about all I have on abandoned railroads in Kansas. Next time I’ll write about Cushing, Oklahoma, an interesting little ghost railroad community and the steam engine supposedly lost in the Cimarron River. Northeastern Oklahoma is filled with Rock Island history. Points of interest include: Blackwell, Ponca City, Stillwater, Cushing, Oklahoma City, El Reno, Kingfisher, and Enid, Oklahoma. No shortage of railroad history in those towns. And no shortage of grain elevators either.

Jeff the "ironhorseman"
Augusta, Kansas (for a few more days)

[Anonymous]

is there any websites with info and pictures??? i manily want kansas
thanks
Daniel